We try to go to different city shopping centres when we go out shopping as going to the same towns with the same shops gets stale. Stoke-on-trent from us is about 45mins away. The city centre shops again are the same as others. I notice that there was a museum literally a few minutes walk from the main shops and was free entry so though we would take a look.
Just outside the entrance is a statue of Arnold Bennet – Stoke-on-Trent’s famous literally writer. The museum is large over 3 floors, The entrance you have a shop and information desk. As we hadn’t been before asked at reception and they gave us a map. There are stairs and also a lift to get to the different floors. The lower floor includes the cafe and a temporary exhibition galley, on our visit we didn’t go down to that level.
The main floor straight in front is an exhibition covering the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, in which there is a selection of the Staffordshire Hoard on display. I have seen this before when It was on display in Birmingham museum. It is still great to see just how many pieces of this was found in a field which is just under 2 miles from where we live.
Around are the archeology and natural science section. These are great with very good displays showing different animals etc. All with great information boards. You had also frontages of old shops etc and even with a Harry potter theme. You have lots of information about day to day living in angle Saxon times. This was the part we spent the most time around as very interesting with so much to see.
There should be on display a full size spitfire though this is away for work at the moment and is said to return next year.
The third floor is both the art gallery and pottery section. To be honest the art work that was on display wasn’t to mine and the missus taste, but was still great to look at again the same with the pottery that was on display. This is what this area is known for and some of the pieces and display are amazing. If pottery is of an interest to you this is great if not it is still worth your time to look around.
We had a really nice visit to the potteries museum and art gallery, well let’s put it this way we spent more time going round the museum that we did around the shopping centre. The museum is free to go around though they have a recommend donation of £3, which is amazing value for what is on display and keeps the museum going. So if you around the Stoke-on-Trent area I would really recommend a visit, put aside at least 2-3hrs to have a good look around.
Here are just some of the photos I took on our visit.